Assigning playmates for recess.?

Question

My child's teacher has a classroom rule that each student is paired with another student for all recesses. The pairing is changed daily. If this were done for a short time to promote unity in the class, I commend the effort. However, this rule continues throughout the entire year. My concern is that my child is new to this class and will want to be able to play and visit with her other friends during this free time. To deny her the ability to manage her free time is unnecessary and not fair. No other grade level teachers have this rule. Also, there is one other student who has bullied my child for the last 2 years - why should I willingly place my child in that situation. Promoting unity as a class can be done in class - I don't feel the teacher should have the right to dictate free time as well. How can this be legal and considered appropriate?

Answer 1

Now I am intrigued and am a bit curious what class level your child is in.  I have never heard of a teacher having quite the rules that your daughter's teacher has, and I assume this is the same child that has to report 20 minutes early every day as well.  

My personal feeling is that the teacher should concentrate on the school district's requirements for your child's grade and curriculum rather than forcing his/her own values and rules on the students.  Having said that, disallowing your child to play with a favorite mate at recess doesn't make sense to me at all.  There is that added stress again.  Creating situations to foster new friends is fine, but certainly placing your child with a "bully" that is either going to end up in more intimidation or a child getting hurt just isn't right.  

As a child growing up, I would have had ulcers if I had been paired up with someone who had been bullying me.  Perhaps in life's scheme of learning, there is some rationale for "facing" your fears or something, but I now think your teacher is overstepping roles of an educator given to them.  I think it's time you acted and not let this situation bother you any longer.

Answer 2

The teacher may have a very valid reason for setting up free time this way, and I can sympathize with the teacher's intention.  My kindergarten class this year could NOT handle free time without fighting, not sharing toys, and being unsafe in the classroom.  For about a month, we had a very structured playtime where I put toys out in specific areas of the room, and the students had to play with their table groups at each location for 10-15 minutes, and then we rotated.  I can say that few students liked it, most understood why we were doing it, and I only had one or two that were vocal about not liking it but dealt with it.  Basically we had to learn how to play appropriately without mistreating the toys, our classroom and each other.  After about a month, we talked about how playtime in our classroom should look, sound and feel.  After that, I still put toys out at specific spots but gave the kids choice - though there could be no more than 3 kids in one spot, so if there were three, you had to walk away and find somewhere else to play.  The only thing I had to keep really structured was the kitchen area, because they would fight over who got to play there.  So I put up a list of their names, and if they chose to play there they had to stay for the whole playtime, then cross their names out, and they couldn't play there again that week until everyone had gotten a turn and I put up a new list.

So your child's teacher probably has really good reasons why she's structuring playtime like that.  Maybe your daughter's class can't handle free choice and they need to learn to get along with each other, even the bullies.

There's no legal issue here, by the way.  A teacher doesn't have to do things just like every other teacher at the grade level in order to be doing the "right" thing.  Who's to say that the other teachers are doing their students any favors?  What does playtime look like in the other rooms compared to your child's?  Is it chaotic or is it calm?  Are the students enjoying themselves or not?  Are they learning to interact with other children they might not interact with normally?  Are they using materials in a safe, appropriate manner?  These are all reasons a teacher may choose to have a very structured playtime.